[How To] Handle Nvidia conflicts on sync

General

Please see [The issue with Plymouth and the Black Screen] to get some background on why this happens for Nvidia based laptops.

Warning: cannot resolve nvidia-utils

You are getting dependency warning when syncing the system

[Example 1]

Resolving dependencies...
Warning: cannot resolve "nvidia-utils=550.90.07", a dependency of "linux66-nvidia"
Warning: cannot resolve "nvidia-utils=550.90.07", a dependency of "linux68-nvidia"
Warning: cannot resolve "nvidia-utils=550.90.07", a dependency of "linux69-nvidia"
Error: Failed to prepare transaction:
could not satisfy dependencies:
- unable to satisfy dependency 'nvidia-utils=550.90.07' required by linux66-nvidia

This may happen when you sync a system which uses an [EOL kernel] using pamac or pacman.

There is no longer kernel modules for the unsupported kernel and the dependency resolve fails.

In this example linux68 is unsupported.

[Example 2]

resolving dependencies...
warning: cannot resolve "nvidia-utils=550.90.07", a dependency of "linux61-nvidia"
warning: cannot resolve "nvidia-utils=550.90.07", a dependency of "linux66-nvidia"
:: The following packages cannot be upgraded due to unresolvable dependencies:
linux61-nvidia  linux66-nvidia

This example should not happen - but if it does - it could be a mirror issue or your metadata (package database) is not current.

sudo pacman-mirrors --continent
sudo pacman -Syu

Option 1

Remove the unsupported kernel

E.g. for linux68

sudo mhwd-kernel -r linux68

Option 2

While system is running the unsupported kernel.

Use mhwd-kenel to move to a supported kernel and in the process remove the unsupported kernel.

E.g. to change to linux66 LTS kernel

sudo mhwd-kernel -i linux66 rmc

Option 3

This is a multistep process when the above is failing for some reason

Remove the video driver using mhwd

sudo mhwd -r pci video-nvidia
sudo pacman -Syu
sudo mhwd -i pci video-nvidia

Option 4

This is more extreme in the approach.

Remove the nvidia-utils package without regards for dependencies

sudo pacman -Rdd nvidia-utils

Then resync your system

sudo pacman -Syu

Finally

Reboot your system

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